California Students Busted for High-Tech Grade-Changing Scam

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Three Southern California high schoolers are facing a punishment
much more severe than detention for allegedly hacking into their
schools' network, changing their grades and selling test answers
to classmates.

The teens, juniors at Palos Verdes High School, are accused of
breaking into the school and placing keyloggers,
tiny skimming devices used to track and record keys struck on a
keyboard, into the USB ports on four teachers' computers, The
Daily Breeze reported. The suspects were taken into custody on
suspicion of burglary last Thursday (Jan. 26).

Using a master key accessed after picking the lock to a janitor's
closet, the suspects broke into the school late at night to
retrieve the keyloggers, from which they could harvest the
teachers'
user names and passwords, which they then used to log in to
the school's grading system. Trying to remain off the radar, the
teens allegedly made only minor changes to test scores to make
their grades average 90.

"They didn't want to make it real apparent something was going
on," Palos Verdes Estates Police Sergeant Steve Barber told The
Daily Breeze. "They knew exactly what to do with the
computers…All their grades magically came out to 90, the lowest
total for an A."

Their late-night escapades inside the high school also served
another deviant purpose. The teens allegedly broke into the
school as many as 20 times to steal copies of tests from
teachers' desks. The students sold the answers to the stolen
tests to classmates, Barber told The Daily Breeze. Up to 12
students might be implicated for participating or benefiting from
the teens' crimes.

The scandal has rattled the Los Angeles-area school, according to
Principal Nick Stephany. He told The
Daily Breeze none of the alleged suspects had ever
gotten into trouble. "They were bright kids," he said. "They were
in AP and honors classes."

He added, "These kids would have been going to a very good
college without any academic dishonesty. That's the sad part
about it."

At the time they were caught, school staff found keyloggers on
three other teachers' computers, a sign the group was expanding
its scam.